deserted; some lived in the past, remembering stray girls in
cities they were passing through. They were older than me but
not by a lot. I wanted their respect. I hadn’t given up and I did
anything anybody else did and I wasn’t afraid o f nothing so
how come it was like I wasn’t there? I mean, I was too
honorable to be anything other than strong and silent, I tell
you; but I thought silence made its own sound, you count on
revolutionaries to hear the silence, otherwise how can the
oppressed count on them? Every lunatic was someone we
knew that we dropped in on or stayed with while we were
running— or m oving just for the sake o f speed, the fun o f
flight. We went to other cities, hitchhiking; we lived in small
rented rooms, slept on floors. We went to other countries—
we begged, we borrowed, yeah, we stole, me more than him,
stealing’s easy, I been stealing all m y life, not a routine or some
fixed act, just here and there as needed, from stores when I was
a kid, when I was hungry or when there was something I
wanted real bad that I couldn’t have because it cost money I
didn’t have— I never minded putting money out if I had it in
m y pocket— I mean, I remember taking a chocolate Easter egg
when I was a kid or m y proudest, most treasured acquisition, a
blues record by Dave Van Ronk, the first man I ever saw with
a full beard like a beatnik or a prophet; I took money when I
needed it and could get it easy enough; pills; clothes. M o n ey’s
w hat’s useful. He began dealing some shit, it w asn’t too hard
or dangerous compared to running borders with other
contraband but it got so he did it without me more and more;
he spent more and more time with these low life gangster
types, not political revolutionaries at all but these vulgar guys
who packed guns and just did business; he said it’s just for
money, what’s it got to do with you or with us, I’ll just do it
fast, get the money, it’s nothing; and it was nothing, I didn’t
have no interest in money per se, but it got so he did the
running, he was free, freedom and flight were his, he’d pick up
and go, I didn’t know where he was or who with or when I’d
meet them they’d be lowlife I had no interest in, just toadies as
much as some corporate businessmen were and I’d feel very
bored with them and they’d treat me like I was a skirt and I’d
feel superior and because I didn’t want no part o f them I didn’t
challenge it, I’d just put up with it and be relieved when he did
his shit for money elsewhere; he hunted money down, he
hunted dope down, he drove the secret highways o f Europe at
a hundred miles an hour, without me, increasingly without
me, and I stayed home and dusted walls, waiting, I waited,
while I waited I cleaned, I dusted, I washed things, I made
things nice, I put something here or there, little touches, but
especially I washed things— I washed floors, dishes, clothes,
anything could be washed I fucking washed it; and I would o f
